With heavy hearts, ICS volleyball sweeps Big Pine

The tragic events of Friday morning shook the local community, and hit close to home for the Immanuel Christian volleyball team.

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By Anthony GentileSPORTS EDITORagentile@ridgecrestca.com

Ridgecrest Daily Independent - Ridgecrest, CA

By Anthony GentileSPORTS EDITORagentile@ridgecrestca.com

Posted Oct. 28, 2013 at 3:28 PM

By Anthony GentileSPORTS EDITORagentile@ridgecrestca.com

Posted Oct. 28, 2013 at 3:28 PM

The tragic events of Friday morning shook the local community, and hit close to home for the Immanuel Christian volleyball team. ICS took the court against Big Pine on Friday afternoon without outside hitter Viviana Munoz, whose father sent police on a wild chase that ended with a shootout at Kramer Junction just hours earlier.

"Given the circumstances that we had, we went into the match with a different mindset and that's what caused the unity within the team," ICS head coach Monica Luuga said. "We played a lot more for each other than we did for ourselves."

Luuga spoke with Munoz a few hours prior to the 3:30 p.m. match, when she informed her coach that she wasn't going to be able to play. That phone call was the first news Luuga had received about the tragic events — ICS' players found out while on lockdown earlier in the day.

"I asked her if she was OK — I know obviously she's not — and I let her know that we were here if she needed anything and that we were praying for her and her family," Luuga said. "It's unfortunate and my heart goes out to her."

When the team met up prior to its match against Big Pine, the first thing they did was say a prayer.

"I had a prayer with them, I let them know the standpoint of where we were and how Viviana was doing," Luuga said. "Opening things up with prayer kind of lessened it up on our hearts — we had heavy hearts."

On the court, ICS (2-3) swept Big Pine 25-15, 25-13, 25-19 at the Kerr McGee Community Center. Trailing 16-10 in the third set, the Crusaders went on a 9-0 run with middle blocker Chloe Walston serving to take control of the set and complete the sweep.

"We had a really good game — we had a tough couple of practices these past few days coming off of the Trona loss," Luuga said. "We went back to the drawing board, and I told them above all else they needed to be mentally prepared rather than physically prepared."

ICS picked up its second win of the season without its talented outside hitter. The Crusaders didn't have any substitutes, and had to change up its lineup for Friday's match.

"With her out, it made us adjust to the situation and our rotation on the court," Luuga said. "We just played straight-up with little tweaks here and there, but they've never practiced that before."